Blog News Reporter: Promotion and Growing your Blog

In part two we talked about your your blogging approach and voice (Blog News Reporter: Approaches and the News), so we’ll talk about what to do once your blog is up and running and you don’t have too many readers.

Syndicate Content: Syndicating your content has a few different aspects. The first and easiet method is syndicating your blog content. Again how to do this is beyond the scope of this article. However you are faced with two choices, full or partial feeds. The argument is as pointless as debating if a glass is half full or half empty. Full feeds make your readers happy, but leave you open to Really Simple Stealing. They also leave you with very few effective advertising options. The choice is yours. The second aspect of syndicating your content is writing content articles for other websites or ezines. The effectiveness of this technique depends on your ability to find popular places who will accept your content for republication.

Blog Directories: Again debating whether directories are worth it or not is another pointless discussion without a definitive answer. I’ve gotten mixed results from directories, however I still use them. The best place to start is Robin Good’s Top 55 Blog directories.

Comments and Delicious: Going out and becoming involved in other conversations in the blogosphere is great way to draw people (and search engine spiders) to your blog. Go out make some comments, include a link to your blog. If your comments are on topic and not a blatant link drop it’s not spam. I picked up this trick from Nick at Threadwatch. Set up a del.icio.us account. Start a category named [replies] use the delicious bookmarklet to tag every page you make a comment on with [replies]. It’s a great way to keep track of comments.

Email, Business Cards and Networking: This is a no brainer that’s been said everywhere, add your web address to all of your outgoing email. Have some discount business cards printed up and pass them out at networking events. Sign up and going networking websites like Linkedin.

Podcasts: See if you can find podcasters in your “neighborhood”. Write to them and ask about the possibility of them interviewing you on their program. Most podcasters are looking for fresh material and things to talk about and can be pretty tolerant of some shameless self promotions.

Conferences: Go to conferences about your subject matter. Talk to other people, talk to exhibitors, talk to speakers, hand out your card, tell them about your blog and what it’s about.

Interviews: If you meet some one interesting, approach them about doing an interview. Let them choose the method, in-person, over the phone or by email. Realize other people may be busy and let them set the time frame. Let them see the interview before publishing it. This is also a good way to get a link from their website 😉

Live Blogging: Go to a special event or conference and live blog from it. This is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. You want to get the material up ASAP, again big advantage for first movers. Set up a photo gallery from the event is another great idea. If someone has a problem with your taking or posting their picture be respectful and accommodating. Make sure the event organizers don’t prohibit you reporting on the event. If the event has WiFi it will make things, much easier.

Press release: Once your blog is up and running submit a press release. Services like PRWeb and PRLeap can help you at fairly reasonable rates. Until you have readership levels you are happy with, submit new press releases about newsworthy events every 4 to 6 months.

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